5 Rituals of Preventive Maintenance

The primary issue with so many health and wellness modalities available today

is that it is difficult for us to choose which one will produce the best return on the amount of attention we give to it.

Practices like yoga and pilates are great, and it’s recommended to “do” them mindfully, but more often than not it seems people will use these methodologies in a way that’s out of balance with their body’s needs, and accidentally replace other more rudimentary habits of self-care.

The easily forgotten and overlooked “wellness practices” are what we focus on first, because they are the most foundational and widely applicable.

Enter the “Rituals of Preventive Maintenance.” This whole idea was drummed up by a question that surfaced soon after learning the concept of “the Pareto Principle”, also known as the 80/20 rule: where 80 percent of results come from merely 20 percent of “work” activity.

The question was “so what’s the 20 percent of effort that produces 80 percent of the results in a person’s general health and wellness?”
Well, how “general” are we talking?

1 — these "80/20 practices” needed to be at a skill level where people of all age, weight, and strength levels could do them

2 — they needed to be accessible to as many people in the world as possible

3 — they needed to not be a time suck

4 — they needed to require no equipment

5 — they needed to be cost-free

And here they are,

The 5 Rituals of Preventive Maintenance:

Ritual 1 - Hydration.

Drinking water and staying hydrated affects every single thing in your body and determines your body’s capacity to perform…

on any level. Complete dehydration, you’re an immovable mummy. Human jerky.

Every Liter of water added to your body adds to your capacity for faster movement, stronger brainpower, and heavier load-bearing potential. It’s liter-ally the one component of wellness that makes or breaks everything else that you’re trying to do in life. I go into this further with a whole blog post dedicated to water. good ole’ non-carbonated neutral Ph non-distilled clean drinking water. https://www.wakepdx.com/blog/hydration

Ritual 2 - Breath Control.

This action step is all about integrating our minds with the animal body we live inside and controlling what we want the body to behave like.

Same thing, full feature blog all about breathing below:

https://www.wakepdx.com/blog/breath-control

Ritual 3 - Range of Motion (ROM).

Feeling out the ways your body doesn’t like to move is key for being able to do anything helpful for it . Full nerd mode activated.

https://www.wakepdx.com/blog/range-of-motion

Ritual 4 - Body Mechanics. Movement through posture. Structured movement. Once you understand this concept kinesthetically (through practice), you’re ready to expand your wellness practice into exercise and nutrition. This is the basis of having “good form” in your exercise routine.

https://www.wakepdx.com/blog/body-mechanics

Ritual 5 - Quality of Rest. The depth of the rest that the body can receive definitely dictates to a very strong degree the pliability and performance capacity of that body’s tissues. Fortunately, all the previous 4 rituals lead up to maximizing the potential of this 5th ritual.

Blog post link coming soon.

Now, Why do we even bother with ANY of it? There are plenty of people “alive and well” that don’t drink enough water if any,

much less do any of the other “wellness-y” things. So why bother? Each person has to answer that question for themselves. Personally, I feel an immense duty to protect and help people who have less strength and/or capability than me. I can’t be that useful if I’m too dehydrated to exert myself and move quickly at a moment’s notice. Too groggy to think clearly. Too sluggish to control my body’s reflexes; to know my limits in movement and not pull a hamstring through a sudden burst of action from a cold desiccated state.

I require a high-performing high-capacity body for me to live peacefully and honor my self-imposed responsibility. The more detailed a person can get with answering the question “why am I alive?” the more reasons they’ll have to follow through on these 5 Rituals of Preventive Maintenance and gain some leverage on using their body the way they want it to work.

I like Sahara Rose’s explanation of why we even bother with wellness in her book Discover Your Dharma. “We do it to raise the planet’s vibration, by first raising our personal vibration and being an example that leads others to do the same for themselves.”

I couldn’t agree more. Let’s create a wake of wellness that washes across the world so we can help heal the people and systems of our planet. We all need to believe that investing in our bodily mastery is worthwhile and necessary in order to accomplish progress toward the general vision of having cooperation, respect, and unity in people’s behavior at large. Gawd I hope this makes sense.

You’re favorite LMT,